


I’ll be here for now (and maybe tomorrow too)

by Morning66



Category: Saved By the Bell (TV)
Genre: Growing Up, Happy Ending, Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25371358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morning66/pseuds/Morning66
Summary: There’s so much Slater doesn’t know until he comes to Bayside.
Relationships: Zack Morris/A.C. Slater
Kudos: 50





	I’ll be here for now (and maybe tomorrow too)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!!!!! :))

  
  


Jennifer is Slater’s first girlfriend, back when he was Albie and she was Jen, back when the world was his oyster and home was a feeling rather than a place.

He meets her when he is thirteen in another country where he can’t speak the language, another house that’s foreign to him. She shakes his hand on the first day of school and introduces him to her friend group that month and things develop quickly from there. Together they explore the streets and sights of Berlin, sitting in the back of the movies, laughing and kissing and sounding out the harsh, guttural German words. 

“You’d better not get too close to her,” J.B. tells him one night, lying across the dirty floor of his bedroom, wearing camouflage shorts and a shirt that three bases ago was his.

“I won’t,” He responds, a bit annoyed that his little sister’s telling him what to do.

He doesn’t have to ask what she means, though. Their lives are a constant stream of new places, new schools, new friends and then of leaving them at the drop of a hat to move half a world away. He and Jen might be thirteen, but they’re not naive, both raised in this world of moves and goodbyes, both knowing their proximity was a ticking time bomb from the start.

J.B. raises an eyebrow, looking up from the Batman comic she’s paging through. “Be careful,” she warns, looking older than any eleven-year-old has a right to.

Slater throws a pillow at her, which leads to a battle of epic proportions that only reaches a ceasefire when their mother interrupts, dark circles under her eyes, a frown on her lips.

Despite his response to his sister’s comment, Slater is careful, or at least as careful as any young teen in a relationship can be. He leaves Jen and doesn’t look back, only forward towards America. He never breaks up with her, maybe because he doesn’t want to see Jen cry, maybe because he thinks it’s obvious that they're over and done with.

* * *

Bayside is the first school Slater’s attended that is in the actual United States and not a base in some far off country. It’s the weird reality of a military brat that he’s grown up representing a country that he’s barely ever in. 

Bayside is also the first school he’s went to that’s not affiliated with the military, where friend groups last longer than a few months. He remembers Zack telling him once that they’ve all known each since the first grade and that floored him. He hasn’t even kept in touch with those he knew at thirteen, much less at seven. People wise, the only constants in his life have been his parents and his sister.

At first, he thinks maybe it’ll be stifling to see the same people year after year, but once he’s experienced it, it’s not. It’s nice to have firm lines drawn in the sand, these are his friends, rather than the amorphous, ever-changing groups of army brats he grew up with.

Bayside is the first school he’s ever felt like he belonged.

* * *

Zack is...well, Zack is something.

That first day, Slater thinks he has him pegged, the kind of troublemaking blonde pretty boy that wouldn’t last two days of basic training, the kind of kid who thinks he owns the school when really he’s just some skinny twerp.

See Slater, he’s good at reading people with a two second glance. After all, he’s met millions of new people, so it’s hard not to be, hard not to have it down to a science. Honestly, it takes him about half that to gauge that Kelly’s pretty as a peach and Zack has the hots for her. Slater’s not sure he likes Kelly yet, but like any red-blooded American boy, he has to agree she’s hot and if going after her will send Mr. Preppy into a tailspin, well that just seals the deal.

What Slater remembers most about that day, though, is standing face to face with Zack in the dusty detention room, no Kelly between them, fighting their heads off. It’s invigorating in a way Slater’s too young to comprehend at the time, his heart beating faster than around Kelly. When their bozo of a teacher interrupts, it feels awkward, more awkward than it really should.

That night, when his mother asks about school as she’s done in so many countries, Slater thinks of Zack. He thinks of fighting over the locker and of being alone together in detention. He’s not sure why, or if he should, but he does. He doesn’t tell his mother this, of course. Instead he says it was fine and lets J.B. chatter on about her new middle school’s soccer team.

* * *

  
They’ve been in California a few months when the Hawaii move comes up, which leads to two major revelations on Slater’s part.

The first is that he doesn’t want to go to Hawaii. Hawaii, what they’ve been talking about for literal years, Hawaii with beaches and sun and surfing and girls, but somehow he’d rather be in suburban California. It’s not that Bayside is so great, but that he has actual friends here and an actual future. Friends who talk about prom and next year and the year after with a certainty that comes from a childhood without deployments and restationing.

Before Bayside, Slater figured he’d always live that way. Grow up and join up, marry a girl and raise their children in a hundred different places around the globe. It’s not so much that it’s what he wanted, just what he expected, what his father expected. The boys on the bases always thought the same thing-that someday they’d be like their dads. But maybe, just maybe, that’s not what he wants.

Slater shoves that realization out of his mind. He’s only a freshman and he still has a lot of time to figure everything out.

The other surprise is that he’ll miss Zack. Freaking Zack, who’s the one who tried to get him to go in the first place. Zack, who just made up some rumor about him having a fatal disease that was going to kill him literally any day now. Even when it seemed Kelly was coming to support him, he was still thinking of Zack.

It would be an understatement to say that realization scares him. 

When it all falls apart and the girls leave, disgusted and dragging Screech of all people, it’s only Slater and Zack left, the tricksters, the game makers, the players.

Slater’s not sure what makes him ask Zack if he’s mad he’s staying, voice joking, but with an edge of sincerity buried deep behind his words, behind a hundred layers of denial.

He’s also not sure why he’s happy when Zack says no, why their eyes lock during the exchange, why when he climbs up on his throne his hands are a tiny bit clammy, a tiny bit sweaty, why the whole thing sticks in his mind so much.

There’s a lot Slater’s not sure about.

When he finally gets home that night, Slater lies flat on his back in his room, staring up at the crack that branches across the ceiling, some sort of funk settling over him.

J.B. comes in before dinner, twisting a baseball cap in her hands, tracking in dust because she never listens to their mom about taking off her shoes. “I hear we’re not going to Hawaii.”

Slater shrugs his shoulders against the bed. “I kinda like it here.”

J.B. stares at him for a minute. “Okay, Big Bro.” 

She punches his shoulder the way their father taught them as children and hits a little too hard, but he doesn’t cry out because he’s a man and she’s his little sister. “I’m glad we’re staying. Gives me more time with Zack!” She calls as she leaves. “Mom says dinner in ten.”

Slater watches her go, annoyance twisting in his gut. He hates when she starts on about Morris, like he’s some dreamy singer, though he knows half the reason she does it is because it bothers him. Zack’s definitely not good enough for his little sister.

* * *

Here’s the thing. That first year and into the second, Slater and Zack fight over Kelly constantly, like she’s some prize to be won, like she’s the Super Bowl or the Stanley Cup. At some point, though, and Slater’s not sure when or how or why, it becomes more about the fight, about outdoing each other in increasingly ludicrous schemes, than about Kelly. It’s not her they’re paying attention to anymore, it’s each other.

Slater knows that somewhere deep in his mind between his conscious and subconscious, but he chooses to ignore it because he’s fifteen freaking years old. He’s fifteen and it’s 1990 and he’s spent ninety percent of his life on various military bases. Maybe the thing with Zack means something, but he’s not ready, not yet, to know what that something is.

* * *

Kelly and Zack finally get together and then break up. 

It’s something to watch, Slater thinks, because Morris spent so much time fighting for her, just to lose her. He half expects their break up to bother him or at least motivate him to take Kelly for himself, but it doesn’t. Instead, it makes him feel kind of happy, a little freer in a way he doesn’t know how to explain.

He tells himself he doesn’t care anymore because now he has Jessie, his Mama, his girl, though she always goes on about guys not owning girls and all that feminism crap.

Jessie’s not like Jen. In fact, other than sharing the same first two letters of their names, he’s not sure they have anything in common at all. Jen at thirteen was always happy to follow his lead, sweet and kind and funny, the type of girl just about raised to be a military brat. Jessie’s the opposite, headstrong and opinionated, which he finds admirable the longer he knows her. She’ll grow up to be her own independent person, he thinks, with or without him. 

The thing is, though he genuinely likes Jessie, he can’t imagine a future with her past, say, the next dance.

He couldn’t with Jen either, of course, but he was years younger then, a boy raised a perpetual nomad. He couldn’t imagine anything past the next month or so in those days.

These days, though, he can see a future, but Jessie and him are never together in it. He can see himself graduating from Bayside, going to college and wrestling, covered in sweat and dirt and grime. Having friends and goofing off in the dorms and at parties, doing things that seem fun in the moment, but they’ll regret the next morning.

Sometimes Zack’s in those dreams, but not Jessie.

* * *

When Lisa tells the gang about Malibu Sands, Slater’s pretty sure he’s in for the best summer of his life. Sure, they might have to do a little working, but really how much can there actually be? It’ll just be him and his best friends, chilling on the beach in a club most of them will never in a million years be able to afford.

It takes him all of about two hours to realize that there is, in fact, a lot of work to do. There’s lifeguarding and waiting tables and attending to guests and setting up games, Mr. Carosi breathing down their necks every second he can. Between him and his daughter Stacey, Slater thinks it’d be easier if his father and his army buddies were his bosses.

It takes Zack all of about two hours to start getting it on with Stacey Carosi.

Now, that should honestly not even surprise Slater because this is Zack, the boy who’d go after any female younger than his grandma. But still, the whole relationship bothers Slater, leaving an uneasy, uncomfortable feeling in his gut, though he’s not sure why. It’s not like he has the hots for Stacey, so why should he care?

It’s kind of funny how things turned out, he thinks one day as he sits next to Kelly high on the lifeguard's chair. He and Zack spent so much time fighting over this girl and now she’s just sitting here, right next to them in a freaking bathing suit and neither of them are doing anything, not flirting, not suggesting, not asking out.

* * *

One night, Slater has to stay late to set up for a luau the next day. Mr. Carosi lets the girls and Screech go home early because according to him, he only needs two strong men. When their boss says that, Slater can see anger forming on Jesse’s brow, words gathering on her tongue, but Kelly drags her away before she can say anything.

Mr. Carosi heads home, instructing the two boys to carry various items out and arrange them in a specific way. 

“I’ll give you a bonus, boys, if you do it as I ask!” He yells back as he departs, leaving Zack and Slater alone in the clubhouse. They work in silence for a few minutes, hauling decorations out of storage and placing them around the party room. 

Slater’s in the midst of arranging a large, vaguely creepy tiki head on an end table when he remembers what happened back in freshman year, back when Zack tried to get him to move away and he didn’t.

“Hey Preppy!” He calls and Zack turns to look at him. His face is red from exertion and a bead of sweat is perched on his forehead, waiting to fall. Slater can feel his heart speed up a bit and something in his abdomen shift. “You glad I’m here?”

Zack blinks at him, then eyes the fake tiki head on a table and understands. “Eh, I guess. I don’t look so stupid compared to you.”

“You’ve got a big mouth,” Slater says, realizing halfway through how that sounds, especially with him staring at Zack’s lips.

This is when Zack should fire back with an insult that will make this a true fight, but he doesn’t. 

“Yeah?” He questions instead with a glint in his eyes, taking a few steps forward so they’re standing right next to each other.

They stand like that for a few seconds, on the precipice of something neither of them want to say, waiting to see which way they’ll fall. Back into familiar territory or into something unknown?

Slater leans forward and closes the distance between his lips and Zack’s big mouth, their faces mashing together with a clomp. Zack tastes like sweat and sunscreen, the remnants of a long day at the beach and kisses back with more finesse than Slater even knows what to do with.

When they finally pull apart, cheeks flushed, eyes wild, neither of them say anything. They probably should, but they don’t. Instead, Zack gestures toward the couch and Slater lets a big grin spread across his face.

* * *

That fall, the fall they’re seniors and kings of the school, is a bunch of him and Zack competing over girls by day and fooling around with each other by night.

It happens in Slater’s car and the empty locker room after school, in Zack’s room with the door locked even though that’s not necessary because his parents are hardly ever home. It happens whenever and wherever it can because they’re both smart, ingenious boys who can think outside the box.

Slater likes to think it’s only physical, just two boys relieving steam because they can’t get girls, but it’s not and he knows it.

He’s getting a little too old to lie to himself about how he feels, he thinks when Zack grins wide at him and steals a fry at the Max and his stomach does a somersault that could rival the way it flips when Zack’s shirtless on top of him. There’s an emotional, romantic component to this relationship and it’s not going to go away, no matter how much it makes him want to tear his skin off, piece by piece.

He doesn’t know how to say that to Zack or if the other boy (nearly a man now, really) feels the same way or not.

It’s a good fall, but Slater’s never been more lost, more confused, in his life.

* * *

He hates himself a little bit when J.B. and Zack almost date and something stirs in his stomach, something deep and dark and heavy and mean that he doesn’t even like to know exists. 

He yells at Zack afterward until his voice is hoarse and Zack yells back just as strong. They both say things that they shouldn’t say, things that they won’t mean the next day or even in an hour. Finally, arguing turns to other things and by the end of the night, Slater’s neck is sore on the inside and the outside.

They eventually fall asleep on Zack’s bed and in the morning, when they’re both sore and tired, eyes sandy with sleep, Zack’s sticks out his hand. “No more girls?”

His voice is soft and Slater thinks he can detect a little fear in it. Fear from the unshakable Zack Morris-what a day.

“No more girls.” Slater echoes and their hands spark as they shake, though Slater’s pretty sure that’s less because of the deal and more because of their feelings.

* * *

His sister’s fighting mad at him for a week after the debacle, the kind of mad that involves ignoring him and kicking his shins and glaring at him across the table when their poor mother isn’t looking.

He’s just about certain that J.B. won’t say a nice word to him ever again, because God knows that girl can hold a grudge, when her anger breaks.

She comes into his room one night when he’s working through his homework, just about done with this stupid derivative. Her face isn’t mad, is plain really, no emotion. He looks up and stares and waits for some sort of insult, some sort of ridicule.

Instead, she twists together her hands, interlocks her fingers. She’s just showered and her hair hangs wet and dark down her back and her t-shirt and sweats are baggy enough to remind him of the child she once was. The girl on those long ago and far away bases who everyone used to think was a boy, what with his hand-me-downs and her shaggy, short haircut.

Even though the biggest issue was that he didn’t want her dating Zack Morris, he still doesn’t really want her having a boyfriend at all. She’s his baby sister, for Christ’s sake.

“It was about Zack, wasn’t it?” J.B. says, breaking him out of his thoughts. He blinks at her.

“What?”

“You didn’t want me dating him because you guys are...” She trails off with a wave of her hand and Slater blinks because is she really saying what he thinks she’s saying?

“What are you talking about, J.B.?”

“You can have him.” She says quick and fast, with a little too much emotion. She leans forward, presses her lips against his hair, light and soft and sweet, and then she’s gone.

* * *

Slater’s not sure until a week later that he confirms that they talked about what he thought they talked about. 

It’s a Tuesday night in late October and the evening news is on, panelists discussing Democratic nominee Bill Clinton’s support of ending the military’s ban on gays and lesbians. His father switches the channel, murmuring about how keeping gays out did everyone a service (except he doesn’t say gays, of course he doesn’t say it. He says a worse word, a harsh, cruel word.) and J.B. reaches for Slater’s hand on the couch and squeezes.

_Oh_ , Slater thinks. _Oh_.

He doesn’t look at her, because he can’t, but he’s pretty sure she understands his unspoken thank you when he squeezes back, just as hard.

* * *

Zack screws up Slater’s West Point interview so bad, Slater’s almost convinced his father will get discharged for having such a disappointing son.

Instead, though, to Slater’s utter astonishment, it works out.

His dad agrees, grudgingly, that if he wants to wrestle that’s okay, that he doesn’t have to go into the military and a weight as heavy as the entire Earth is taken off of Slater’s back. He feels it down deep into his bones, the relief flooding, panic ebbing away.

Maybe, he thinks, maybe once upon a time he’d have been happy to go into the military, to follow in his father’s footsteps, to live out his days on the bases of his childhood, the whole world his home. 

He’s not that boy anymore and hasn’t been for a long time now. He can’t make himself into something he isn’t and at eighteen that fact finally settles into his mind irreversibly.

Anyway, he admits bravely in the mirror to himself one day, his hands shaking, he’s probably not allowed in the service.

* * *

Slater kisses Zack in the bathroom as the new year dawns, the noises of the party raging outside of the locked door acting as a soundtrack.

He’s buzzed on cheap alcohol that tastes like piss, but does the job and he’s just enough on the wrong side of sober to be hopeful. 1993 stretches ahead, brave and bright and beautiful, full of possibility. Graduation is coming and college after that and it’s all amazing and exciting.

Zack’s pressed against him, legs, arms, thighs, nether regions, and it feels more permanent than anything an army brat could ever dream of.


End file.
